"I may know little of the world," exclaimed Juliet hotly, "but at all events I know enough to see that people are not so bad as they are made out. If Flossie is an undesirable companion, I can only say that I like her infinitely better than any proper, correct, narrow-minded person like Hannah. I begin to doubt the advantages of the respectability on which Hannah and Salome pride themselves, when I see how much nicer people can be without it."
"Oh, child, don't talk like that! You frighten me. Hannah and Salome are right. They may be a little over-strict,—I do not say they are not,—but they are right in the main. It never does to defy social opinion. Bohemianism may look attractive to a young girl like you, who knows nothing about it, but it is a perilous borderland at the best. Oh, I do wish I could persuade you—"
"Not to give up being friendly with Flossie Chalcombe, who has no dear mother as I have, and really wants me," said Juliet, who had approached her mother, and now slipped one arm about Mrs. Tracy's neck, and deftly closed the lips, whose utterance she did not wish to hear, with her rosy finger-tips. "You would not wish me to do that, I am sure, mother mine." Then with a loving hug and kiss Juliet bounded away, laughing lightly as she quitted the room.
Thus the talk between Juliet and her mother ended as Hannah could have foretold that it would end.
[CHAPTER II]
THE ILL-CHOSEN FRIEND
HANNAH GRANT was an excellent person in every way. Her health was as sound as her principles, and she was a fine-looking, without being a winsome, woman.
Others beside her pupils shrank from the severe scrutiny of her cold blue eyes. Yet she was fairly liked by the girls she taught, for, whilst a strict disciplinarian, she was invariably just. Clear-headed and eminently practical, she had a knack of imparting knowledge in such a manner that even the least nimble-minded could not fail to grasp it. This, however, was not the outcome of mere chance, but the result of conscientious effort on her part.
Whatever Hannah undertook to do, she took infinite pains to do it well. She gloried in her thoroughness, her good sense, her subjection of inclination to duty. It followed that she had little patience with those whose conduct fell below her own standard. She lacked the imaginative insight and the gentle sympathy that might have led her to make allowance for her weaker sisters. The idle, thoughtless, and inconsequent amongst her pupils found no mercy with her.
Juliet was not in the form taught by her sister, and they came little into contact during school hours. Though by no means stupid, Juliet rarely took a good position in her classes. She had been frail and delicate as a child, as children born in India often are, and Mrs. Tracy refused to allow her education to be pressed. She should run wild until she had attained some robustness.